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16 Document No. 19. [Session
sanitary quality of any water witli unerring accuracy. Tlie really
harmful factor in a polluted water being the bacteria of disease
which might be present, the detection of these, it was argued, would
he the final proof of the unfitness of a given water, while in their
absence a water could be considered at least not dangerous. But it
was soon found that, however well established the relation between
certain bacteria and the disease to which they give rise, and however
easy their identification in pure culture, yet the detection of these
bacteria in water was a task never easy and usually impossible.
Thus, because bacteriology stood self-confessed as unable to accom-plish
the supreme test demanded of it, the real possibilities of the
science were either overlooked or undervalued, and for a time, indeed
until quite recently, chemical methods again enjoyed the ascendancy,
though now decidedly shorn of almost superstitious reverence pre-viously
accorded them.
Along about this time it began to be recognized that the subject
of water sanitation was one of sufiicient importance to constitute a
real specialty in itself, and so, while most chemists and bacteriologists
were engaged in the futile and rather amusing attempt to claim
superiority for their respective sciences, a few, with wider vision,
began to attack the problem in the true modern spirit—^by work
instead of words—and as a result of their labors, both directly and
in the impetus thus given to the whole subject, the modern water
expert came into being. The object of the present paper is to show
the necessity of bringing to bear all the available methods of research
in arriving at a trustworthy opinion of the sanitary quality of a
water supply. This can, of course, l)e done merely in outline in a
paper of this kind.
As above suggested, the work of a water expert is not the simple
matter it was formerly held to be. True, in many instances a given
water is so obviously and grossly contaminated that its unfitness for
drinking purposes is manifest to even the most casual observer.
Such cases need not be discussed here. At the other extreme stand
those woodland springs and streams (each year becoming more i-are),
so removed from all possible contamination as to l)e unquestionably
pure. But the vast majority of all possible sources of water supply
(excluding those so plainly contaminated as to be unworthy of con-sideration)
fall in the class where prudence suggests or demands an
investigation of their sanitary quality.
The opinion is still widely prevalent, not only among the general
public, but among members of the medical profession as well, that a
chemical examination of water for sanitary purposes is much the
same thing as an analysis for any other purpose ; such, for instance,
as the determination of the commercial value of an iron ore or the
purity of a food product. Such is by no means the case. In a sani-tary
water analysis the analytic processes themselves are for the

16 Document No. 19. [Session
sanitary quality of any water witli unerring accuracy. Tlie really
harmful factor in a polluted water being the bacteria of disease
which might be present, the detection of these, it was argued, would
he the final proof of the unfitness of a given water, while in their
absence a water could be considered at least not dangerous. But it
was soon found that, however well established the relation between
certain bacteria and the disease to which they give rise, and however
easy their identification in pure culture, yet the detection of these
bacteria in water was a task never easy and usually impossible.
Thus, because bacteriology stood self-confessed as unable to accom-plish
the supreme test demanded of it, the real possibilities of the
science were either overlooked or undervalued, and for a time, indeed
until quite recently, chemical methods again enjoyed the ascendancy,
though now decidedly shorn of almost superstitious reverence pre-viously
accorded them.
Along about this time it began to be recognized that the subject
of water sanitation was one of sufiicient importance to constitute a
real specialty in itself, and so, while most chemists and bacteriologists
were engaged in the futile and rather amusing attempt to claim
superiority for their respective sciences, a few, with wider vision,
began to attack the problem in the true modern spirit—^by work
instead of words—and as a result of their labors, both directly and
in the impetus thus given to the whole subject, the modern water
expert came into being. The object of the present paper is to show
the necessity of bringing to bear all the available methods of research
in arriving at a trustworthy opinion of the sanitary quality of a
water supply. This can, of course, l)e done merely in outline in a
paper of this kind.
As above suggested, the work of a water expert is not the simple
matter it was formerly held to be. True, in many instances a given
water is so obviously and grossly contaminated that its unfitness for
drinking purposes is manifest to even the most casual observer.
Such cases need not be discussed here. At the other extreme stand
those woodland springs and streams (each year becoming more i-are),
so removed from all possible contamination as to l)e unquestionably
pure. But the vast majority of all possible sources of water supply
(excluding those so plainly contaminated as to be unworthy of con-sideration)
fall in the class where prudence suggests or demands an
investigation of their sanitary quality.
The opinion is still widely prevalent, not only among the general
public, but among members of the medical profession as well, that a
chemical examination of water for sanitary purposes is much the
same thing as an analysis for any other purpose ; such, for instance,
as the determination of the commercial value of an iron ore or the
purity of a food product. Such is by no means the case. In a sani-tary
water analysis the analytic processes themselves are for the